Sunday, 18 October 2015

Power grabbing by stealth

The next area of research for this blog is on how the EU is trying to beef up its presence at the UN General Assembly and speak on behalf of EU members as it does on all the regulatory bodies. This upcoming vote on the EU is not a vote on whether we want to stay in the EU as it is but as it is going to be.

The Kippers have only half understood us when we say the EU takes our seat at the top table. As we keep saying, it has advanced observer status on multiple bodies and only has supremacy over those matters where it retains exclusive competence (TFEU1). In those such efforts, the EU commision adopts a position and then we are forced to vote for the common position. In this we have no veto or right of reservation.

There are however other times when a matter is a shared competence between the member states and the EU depending on the context. In this there can be disputes in that adopting regulations is no longer simply a matter of making laws, but instead is seeking regulatory convergence which is central to all new trade deals. That is the pretext under which the EU can seize full control. Where there is a dispute as to whether the instance is an exclusive competence, it is the ECJ who decides.

From that, precedents are set which then grant the EU further powers and so the ECJ is very much an engine of EU integration. That is what the kippers unknowingly mean when they say we are ruled by "unelected judges". As it happens, it would be no more legitimate even if they were elected.

That is in the instances where a Council decision is challenged - which every often they are not. We can find instances of Council decisions granting the EU right of exclusive competence over the Maritime Labour Convention in that some of the provisions under the convention pertain to social security schemes. We find evidence of EU proposals to widen the scope of international conventions in order to gain exclusivity in the vote in this way. Integration by stealth without a treaty.

Anywhere the EU has observer status it is seeking to advance its own agenda to replace member states entirely at the top tables and remove their right of reservation or vetoes. There is no doubt that the EU is power hungry and is seeking to establish the same status as a nation state at the global level. If you are voting to stay in the EU, you are not voting for the EU as it is today, you are voting for the eventual eradication of Britain's voice in the world.

Course, Richard North is keen to make the distinction that while the EU seeks the international status of a nation state it does not seek the same powers in the same regard. He says "The EU has shown no territorial ambitions ... the defining characteristic of a nation state is that is has sovereign rights over territory." The EU is seeking to be the supreme government of Europe but seeks power without responsibility. "As I have said many times, it wants control over the people who empty the dustbins, but it does not want to take the responsibility for actually emptying them."

By the time the new EU treaty comes along, it will have established a great deal of control over eurozone nations, but will not assume responsibility for implementing those measures it sets out. Why take the blame when you don't have to? In this regard the EU has the best of both worlds. It speaks for us at the global level, it implements global conventions on our behalf - off the media radar, and when it comes to the consequences, it can plead innocence. When it comes to deception, the EU is a skilled operator. This is a theme to which we shall return.